F1’s complexity a challenge even for engineers
F1’s recent changes made the sporting regulation rather complex which often presents a huge challenge for fans to understand. Penalty systems regarding the power units or on-track misbehavior or regulations regarding power unit allocation or tyres often lead to confusion.
The complexity of modern F1, especially after the 2014 technical regulation revamp can confuse not only fans, but it sometimes poses challenges to engineers too. Subtle technical regulations mean that various parts of the car have to work in harmony. The need for this united operation gained vast importance with the introduction of the hybrid power unit three years ago.
On the other hand, the fact that teams employ many engineers in the modern era of F1 rather then only a small group of technicians means that most of the engineers cannot develop a holistic view on the car, but rather have to specialize on a certain area. That also depends on the size of the engineers’ group. As top teams can afford to employ an army of engineers, the scale of the specialization is greater. In contrast to that, smaller teams can employ less engineers which urges them to work on different projects of the car’s development.
Manor Racing’s Head of Design Luca Furbatto stated that their engineers have many tasks to deal with as the team is significantly smaller than its top rivals. It means projects are not completely separated and engineers have to work on different parts of the car.
“Manor is a very small team and we have approximately 200 people. I think the biggest difference with a top team is the size of our design office which is much smaller, about a third or a quarter of (a top team's one) as a result, engineers are actually not that specialized but they need to deal with different parts of the car which they find very motivating, very rewarding,“ said Furbatto.
Mercedes’ senior technical figure Aldo Costa revealed that time has changed dramatically since he started working in F1. The Italian had the chance to work in various departments of Ferrari which enabled him to develop a breadth of view.
“It’s a big problem that all Formula One organisations have got at the moment. People like me, I changed in a team many different types of job to try to understand as much as I could everywhere. Now, these days, the young guys get employed and they become specialists and they don’t go around and they don’t grow up with a general knowledge of the car.”
“We are looking for the next technical director at Mercedes and we are trying to do a programme for development of these students who are slightly different, trying to let them understand a bit more.”
Other senior members think that the new challenge for engineers is less complicated to handle with as they let their young talents gain experience in various departments in their early development process before they get specialized in a certain area.
Toro Rosso’s chief Franz Tost revealed the maturing process also depends on the intention and ambition of engineers. Those who want to take on a leader role later, have to develop a holistic view, but not everyone needs to do that.
“Students are coming from the university and most often – at least at Toro Rosso – they are already linked to us before they finish their studies, to get some experience and then they go from department to department just to get more knowledge of what’s going on, to get more experience and then they get specialized and it depends, then, what they want to do in the future. There are some engineers who don’t want to be a leader, they just want to be involved in a special technical project,” added Tost.
Toro Rosso have many connections to Italian and other universities. This allows the Faenza-based team to pick the most talented youngsters out. Students can gain experience in the last phase of their studies which offers them a unique opportunity to work in one of the technologically most advanced department and it is also beneficial for Toro Rosso because their F1 environment could be enticing for the most talented newly graduated engineers.
Ferrari’s freshly appointed chief technical officer Mattia Binotto is relieved by the flexibility and talent of young engineers as he revealed that Ferrari’s youngsters can adapt very quickly to a new role if they are asked to change position or even a technical department inside the organisation.
"At Ferrari we have many young engineers and we can see that these young engineers are very skilled, quite surprising. The complexity of our technology has risen but the people are very fast and very quick and I am quite surprised at the speed they develop their skill and professionalism," revealed Binotto.
